5/24/2005

Burlington Industries Implosion 3

This is the story of a building and a town.

Once upon a time, Burlington Industries brought the world to Greensboro. Its executives came and went from a helipad atop the corporate headquarters, an award-winning landmark of steel and glass on a corporate campus of stunning maple trees.

The company prospered; the town became a city.

The city grew; the world changed. Eventually, no one could find much use for a textile company's corporate world headquarters.

So on May 23, 2005, they brought it down.

With its facile erasure from the city's landscape, so went one of the last physical vestiges - but not entirely the memories - of the modern American textile industry, once so intricately woven in the city's fortunes and future.

The city will grow and grow and grow, enjoying the rich bounty of the world that textiles first brought to its doorstep.